Microsoft Announces PDC 2010

Microsoft announces the dates for its next Professional Developers Conference (PDC): Oct. 28-29. Microsoft's PDC 2010 will be held on the company's Redmond, Wash., campus, and all keynotes and sessions will be Webcast for viewers who do not make it to the event.

WASHINGTON-Microsoft
has announced the dates for its next Professional Developers Conference (PDC):
Oct. 28-29.
At
the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference
(WPC) here on July 12, Bob Muglia, president of the Server and Tools
Business at Microsoft, announced that the next Microsoft PDC will be held Oct.
28-29 on Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Wash.

Opening
up its campus for a major conference is a novel move for the software giant.
According to the PDC 2010 Website:
"For the first time ever, our most influential customers will converge on the
Microsoft Campus in Redmond for the
PDC. We're opening the doors to our buildings and labs, and providing
unprecedented access to Microsoft's leaders and engineering teams on their home
turf."

There
had been speculation that there would not be a PDC
this year as Microsoft was between cycles with its core set of development
tools-primarily Visual Studio 2010-and Microsoft has previously followed a
pattern of not holding a PDC every year.
However,
Muglia said there will be a PDC 2010 and it
will be blown out broadly with not only all the keynotes, but every session
made available to viewers via the Web. Describing the huge undertaking,
Microsoft's PDC 2010 site said: "This year's
groundbreaking event will include live streaming of the keynotes, as well as
concurrent live streaming of sessions."
"This
fall we will be doing a PDC, PDC
2010 live from the Microsoft campus and also broadcast online around the
world," Muglia said. "This is after all, all about the cloud, so you don't have
to come to Redmond to be at PDC."
Despite
Microsoft having delivered the flagship Visual Studio tool set this year, the
company continues to evolve its tooling for all of its platforms, including its
Web development tools, Windows Phone and the cloud, among others.
As
the PDC 2010 site said:

"Since
1991, the PDC has been the epicenter of
Microsoft's biggest platform announcements. This year will be no exception.
Leading-edge developers and architects will gather in Redmond
this October to hear firsthand from Microsoft's leaders about the next
generation of Cloud Services, Phone, Tools & Technologies, Internet
Explorer and Gaming Platforms. The PDC isn't
just about content and sessions-it's an opportunity for you to get hands-on
access to the latest technologies, have your questions answered by the people
who conceived and built the technologies and plan the features and architecture
to support your business goals."

Darryl K. Taft covers the development tools and developer-related issues beat from his office in Baltimore. He has more than 10 years of experience in the business and is always looking for the next scoop. Taft is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and was named 'one of the most active middleware reporters in the world' by The Middleware Co. He also has his own card in the 'Who's Who in Enterprise Java' deck.